Yardley Of London - Case Study Example

Running Head: Yardley Of London Company Research By _____________________ Introduction In the past decadesso many Organisations laid foundation stone and provided different products and services, none of them is remembered unchanged from the time of initiation, so the change in an Organisation is a mandatory for keeping the products or services in the growth stage or maturity while avoiding them to appear in the decline stage, today one can see big Organisations with big changes in their history, one can say that the change in an Organisation is like a new blood in it, and that is why most of us say that new blood is good for old Organisation. The organisation we would be discussing is a very well known in not only Britain but also the entire world. Yardley of London is among the most popular companies in Britain. History Of Yardley Yardley was first brought into business in 1620, in the reign of the impecunious Charles I, when a young man of that name paid the monarch a large, and no doubt welcome, sum of money to gain a concession to manufacture soap for the whole of London. Sadly, the particulars of this canny enterprise were lost in the great fire of London in 1666, except for one detail: Mr. Yardley used English lavender to perfume his soap a fragrance for which Yardley is famous to this day. William Cleaver inherited the soap and perfumery business founded by his father in the city of London in 1770. When he run into debts his father in law, William Yardley, took over the business becoming the first Yardley to own the enterprise. Here the story of a world-renowned company that has brought beauty to so many women and good grooming to so many men began. In 1817 William Yardley was trading still as a sword-cutler in Bloomsbury, but by 1824, when he died, he had transferred to adjacent premises the second business of supplying lavender, cosmetics and soap. This business was left to his younger son, Charles (1795-1882), for the elder son, John, was already established as a builder. He it was who built St. James's Church in Clerkenwell, and whose name is perpetuated in Yardley Street off Rosebery Avenue London. Charles Yardley soon appointed a partner and established his own son Charles (1824-1872), in the business, which was known as Yardley and Statham. It was under this name that the firm exhibited at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851, expending some fifty pounds on showcases, soap moulds and other items and sharing a little of the glory of the incredible 'Crystal Palace'. A sample cake of Old Brown Windsor Soap, carrying an embossed representation of Windsor Castle is still preserved in the Yardley archives and was exhibited again at the 1951 Festival of Britain. The business was blooming and the first overseas selling organisations were open. Advertising increased and with it the demand for Yardley products. By 1910 a London centre at 8 New Bond Street, famous for years afterwards, had been opened for the display and retail sales of a firm which, only ten years before, had been virtually unknown to the general public. 1920 saw Yardley converted into a public limited company, with 1921 bringing the first foray into the lucrative US market. By 1932 the spirit duty on lavender was removed, turnover doubled and the factory needed extending. Further accommodation was found at 32 High Street Stratford. From 1950s onwards, Yardley further enhanced its worldwide reputation by expanding into five different market sectors: cosmetics, luxury bath products, female fragrances, male fragrances and skin care. These were the years where the beloved classics of White Satin, Lace and English Blazer were launched, and the Yardley lipsticks were advertised as an essential 'woman's ammunition'. Yardley London enters the new millennium as world leaders in naturally fragranced bath luxuries, remaining true to its heritage as the quintessential English perfumery house specialising in lavender and floral fragrances. From sedan chairs to the Concorde; from messengers to communication satellites; from bear's grease to bath luxuries, this is the story of the past 200 years. Products Yardley is having a wide product line and length, the products are divided into six sections, fragrances, body care, skin care, shaving, colour cosmetics and hair care. The fragrance consists of eighteen different products, ranging from 2.75 to 11.95. The most lengthy section is the body care section which includes total of sixty six products, from shower gel to body lotion, from body spray to deodorant, from perfumed talc to luxury soap, ranging from 2.25 to 6.95. Then comes the skin care section which includes only five products such as facial creams and face washes, ranging from 3.5 to 8.5. The other section includes the men's stuff which is known as shaving, this includes only nine products such as shaving gel, after shave, pre shave lotion, ranging from 3.95 to 10.95. The colour cosmetics section is the next in the line, it includes only seven types of different colours women apply as makeup, each of them costs 3.69. The last section is hair care which only includes four products that are hair cream and Brilliantine, ranging from 3.35 to 4.75. After the brief introduction to all the Yardley's products, it is fair to analyse the body care section which is so wide. There is an increasing pressure for companies to improve their product development capability; the challenge is to provide innovative design solutions in shorter timescales whilst not compromising on product quality. Many companies are looking for a step change in their development performance, targeting improvements of around 20-30%. This in itself is a significant challenge, with the added pressure of insufficient assistance to achieve such improvements and limited understanding of how best practice companies achieve industry leading processes and products. The body care section at Yardley includes merely sixty six products, out of which soaps are very prominent, initially the soaps were launched triggering the core needs of the English society, but sooner the competition grew and the company had to put extra to packaging, fragrance, quality, keeping in view the skin sensitivity and all, this is where the strategic planning comes in view. Soap As A Product Yardley wanted to have profitability and therefore it employed such means that could lead it to success. It is fair to review the entire soap history which is reviewed by Yardley. Soap can be defined as "a cleansing agent. It cleanses by lowering the surface tension of water, by emulsifying grease, and by absorbing dirt into the foam" (The Columbia Encyclopedia). Concepts and ideas for new products must be evaluated on a number of key dimensions: feasibility of manufacture, likely cost of further development, expected production and marketing costs, fit with company goals, and likelihood of acceptance in the marketplace, among others. Concept evaluation, or screening, seeks to identify which concepts ought to be considered further. Much work has been devoted to analyzing new product launches of the recent past, identifying factors which tended to lead to product success or failure. This information can be (and has been) developed into models for predicting likely market success for new-product ideas. Models that possess many of the features which led to past successes are candidates for further development. Yardley has cautiously followed the models for innovation in Soap in every decade. Although the process of soap production goes back to antiquity, there are records of a Phoenician trade in soap in the 6th Century B.C., cleanliness was not always next to godliness and bathing down the ages had precious little to do with keeping clean. Soap was unknown to the ancients, although the Egyptians got as far as adding natron, a form of carbonate of soda, to their water, and the Gauls made a concoction from goats' fat and beech ash for brightening their hair. Soap making began in countries round the Mediterranean where raw materials suited to it were abundant. These were olive oil and a fleshy plant called barilla, the ashes of which provided an alkali. The alchemists were much pre-occupied with what they regarded as the 'magical' properties of soap. So the three great centres for soap making in Europe grew up around Marseilles, in France, Savona, in Italy and Castile, in Spain. In Queen Elizabeth I's reign, soap was in fairly general use, though the bath was not. The Queen herself was recorded as taking a bath once a month, sometimes, it is said, when it wasn't even necessary! By the 17th century soap began to exercise a curious fascination for the legislators. Louis XIV of France granted the complete monopoly of soap manufacture to one Pierre Rigat for twenty years, and, as we know, Charles I of England sold the monopoly rights for soap making for the whole of London to Mr. Yardley. The result was serious for 180 soap makers operating in Bristol who were forthright with their complaints and petitioned against this injustice. Many who disobeyed were brought to London to be fined or to languish for years in Fleet Prison. Unlike the streamlined production lines of today, soap manufacturers had a tough time of it up to the 19th century. Until 1852 soap was made in bond with the government gaining the revenue. Indeed the soap boiling pans were fitted with lids which the excise officer locked every evening to prevent any illegal manufacture. The revenue at this time from soap alone stood at 1,126,000. This punitive duty was abolished by Gladstone in 1853 who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, when soap making became something of a boom industry. This became a turning point in social attitudes towards personal cleanliness. To date soaps have been developed not only to cleanse the body but with the addition of special agents to deodorise and moisturise the skin. Visible inclusions such as herbal extracts or beads can also be added to the formulations to make the soaps look interesting. Initially, at the time of bringing the product in the market, the soap was ordinarily floated in the market in the plastic packing, so that it cannot be damaged due to weather/moisture. As the competition grew, Yardley realised that there was a lot needed to sustain the pressure and the position in the market. The product sooner in mid of 19th century was brought as a bundle as three soaps in a same packing, the sales even then very balanced as the competition was relatively less, in the 20th century, due to the fact that everyone in the competition was willing to sell an actual product rather than core, and so the packaging and printing made a significant impact on the minds of consumers and so the Yardley adapted to this new change, the products initially had a rough packaging but nevertheless it was better in comparison to many others.. Further, Yardley coped with the changes in a way that it later brought many changes in the same product, a simple soap was then available with many fragrances and varieties which gave a clear idea that Yardley never took a chance of resting, and it constantly brought changes to its products to gain more of attention. Yardley constantly adapted the change and so it constantly catered the minds of not only English but also people from everywhere. An in depth analysis showing the need of restructuring the strategies is discussed later Outcome Of Analysis It is fair to assume that Yardley did go through a number of stages to innovate its products. The company is doing exceptionally well keeping deeper penetration in not only Britain but also in the entire world. The company has got its products available in both big stores and local/open markets, the prices are however different. The company has associated it self with 'English' society and therefore people prefer using it. Yardley's products, particularly soaps, talc and body sprays are widely being used in the entire world and so it gives a clear hint of its penetration in the world markets. An approximate measurement can be taken from the fact that Yardley is having an online shop which can deliver the products to people who cannot find it near them, they can make an online order and can get Yardley delivered at their home. According to the analysis, following might be the main causes of change in Yardley from the day it started its operations till today. The restructuring was caused because of the following issues. Evaluation of External Environment The external environment is more formally known as the opportunities and threats, it is called so because both of these are affecting the firm or an organisation externally, it not only includes the external affect but there are certain actions that are more concerning here, an organisation or firm has to monitor the both macro environmental and micro environmental forces in order to control effectively. The Macroenvironmental forces include demographic-economic, which means that an industry is definitely influenced by the population and the buying power of the consumer, than come technological influence which means the changing trends or tastes in the society perhaps due to change in the world because of technology improvement, than comes political-legal constraints, which means the influence of the government formed laws and regulations, than the last of it is social-cultural influence which means the usual practices of the society, that may be irrelevant to what the organisation is manufacturing or providing. The next one is Microenvironmental forces that include customers, that of course are the biggest reason to the firm's profit, if customer would change behaviour than the product or service may become useless, the next influence is of competitors due to which the organisations need to be more competitive, according to Michael porter (1980,1985,1990), " five competitive forces are the essential determinants of the industry structure1. If these forces are properly assessed, individually and collectively, this will lead to the identification and subsequent deployment of appropriate (i.e. profitable) strategies" (Anderson, Lowell R.J., Gavin C.R., 1993: 121). The last two are distributors and suppliers to influence, if they would not supply raw material or would not distribute the firm's product, firm can be affected greatly. External Threats Threats are usually felt from the Competitors, Government, Natural Calamities, Distributors, Suppliers and Customers. In recent years it has been seen that most of the threats do come from natural calamities and competitors, however each and every form of threat has to be considered important while decision making. The company has no specific power to stand against threats that are confronting, because they are just in the form of sudden attack at times, like the natural calamities have no specific region or time, they can appear at any time, a good example is that, any competitor can launch new product or any new sales promotion technique suddenly, without informing any one in the competition, what organisation needs to do is that it has to be aware all the time, and should use pro-active approach, which means anticipation of the future events. Internal Weaknesses The internal weaknesses are those that are from within the firm, they can be in any department of the firm, for say if the company's manufacturing quality is poor, than may be it is using an old technology that is out of date. The company has the only power to improve the situation no one else would do it but the executives at the company, weaknesses appear from a series of pattern, for say, if the company is not up to date, may be it didn't notice such changes in the market trends over the years, what the company should do is that it should keep itself aware of the changes in the society, changes in the buying behaviour, and if nothing could be done, it should focus on its strengths. External Opportunities External opportunities are somewhat related to the external world, it involves competitors and most importantly the customers. Lets suppose that a competitor has increased the prices of the similar product that a firm is selling, it would be an opportunity for the firm to attract the competitor's customers, in the same way if the customers are now willing to see changes may be because the product they are using is in its maturity stage, which means that it's a sort of surety that now the product would start loosing its share instead of gaining, so here is also an opportunity for the firm to conduct some research and launch a new product, that can snatch the market share from competitors. Internal Strengths Internal strengths have an important role to play here, it is because of these that a firm can take those opportunities, a weak firm cannot be an opportunist. If the firm is having strengths than it should realise them as quickly as possible and should start working more on them rather than wasting time and knowing them after the time has gone, the best way to know the strength's is to forget the company's weaknesses and analyze what it is having right now, what operations it is conducting and how much it has been supported by others, besides proving that firm is having strengths, it could be a very handy option in the company's profile on the basis of which creditors or shareholders invest. References Anderson, M.E., Lowell R.J., Gavin C.R. (1993), "Profiles in Small Business: A Competitive Strategy Approach", New York: Routledge. Bartol, K.M., Martin D. (1998), "Management", New York: McGraw Hill. The Columbia Encyclopedia. (2004), "Soap", New York: Columbia University Press. Drejer A. (2002), "The Strategic Management an Core Competencies", Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Kotler, P. (1999), "Marketing Management". (n.p.): Prentice-Hall. Randall J. (2004), "Managing Change, Changing Managers", New York: Routledge. Read More